


Improbably Romantic

by Era_Penn



Series: Through Death We Won't Part [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Cute, First Fight, First Kiss, Fluff, I hope, M/M, Romance, Sappy, Wedding, sap, so so sappy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Era_Penn/pseuds/Era_Penn
Summary: Between THEN and Everything and Nothing, the romantic entanglements of Phil Coulson and Tony Stark. Engagements, moving in, kisses, weddings... oh my!





	1. Dans une semaine je reviendrais (I'll be Back in a Week)

**February 14, 2007**

“Really, it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t. I am sorry. I would much rather be there.”

Tony suppressed a sigh. “Yeah. I get it. Still, saving the world is a pretty worthy cause. As far as excuses go, it’s probably the only one that gets you a free pass.”

“I know we had plans, but there’s just no way I’ll be there…” Phil trailed off. Tony identified a note of annoyance and more than a touch of pout in Phil’s voice.

“We’ll celebrate when you get home. It would be a bit more difficult if the known world ended.”

“I want to be there.”

“I know,” Tony said. He definitely knew. Every call they’d had for the last week and a half had been similar to this one, only they finally had confirmation that Phil wouldn’t be home tonight. “Tell your agents to hurry it up. I _miss_ you.” He couldn’t quite keep the longing out of his voice. He wanted his Phil back.

“I miss you, too.” Some shuffling noises. “Ah, fuck. I gotta run - Clint.”

Tony grinned a bit. “Clint. Tell him I’m cussing him out.”

“Will do. Love you.”

“Love you too.” The line went dead. Tony stared at his phone screen, pouting. He’d had the whole evening planned out. He had reservations at a good Greek place, and a car picked out to drive somewhere where the stars were visible, and a jet on standby just in case they wanted to go somewhere farther. Also, he had flowers, and chocolates, and some obscure Captain America memorabilia. And really tight jeans.

Though, on second thought, Tony thought the tight jeans might not be a good idea. He’d been taking a lot of cold showers lately. He knew Phil was being polite trying not to push him out of his comfort zone, but damn he just wanted to kiss the agent senseless. And then kiss him again. And again. And… 

No. Bad Tony. Stop. Cold showers weren’t fun. Still, Phil maybe had a point about letting Tony initiate most of their kisses, because every time Tony thought about Phil doing so, he had to stop so as not to have a panic attack. Which wasn’t really a good thing. Tony just needed to remind himself more often that Phil was nothing like Ty and kisses now didn’t necessarily mean Tony couldn’t say no to future kisses.

Groaning, Tony tossed his phone aside. 

“Sir,” Jarvis said, “You have an appointment in an hour.”

“Don’t remind me,” Tony grumbled. Okay, yeah, after that thing in December he sort of saw everyone’s point about needing to talk to a professional, but _ugh_. Feelings. At least Dr. Routledge didn’t pretend to be smarter than Tony. No one was smarter than Tony, and it made it infinitely easier to talk about himself when people didn’t brush that off as just a big ego. And so far, the doc and his staff hadn’t even leaked anything to the press, which was a first.

“Sir.”

Tony groaned and dragged himself off to get dressed. So he hadn’t bothered this morning, he was just lounging around the house anyway. Sue him. He could afford it.

* * *

“He says he’s cussing you out internally,” Phil whispered, back to back with Clint in a small, cramped closet.

“Is that really relevant at the moment?” Clint hissed back.

“He told me to tell you.”

“Whipped.”

“Not as bad as you’ll be when Natasha finds out you _led them right to us_.” Phil glowered at the archer, who winced in the dim light.

“Well, we couldn’t find them, and you said to hurry up!”

Phil barely held in a groan. Sometimes he really just wanted to kill Clint. Footsteps crossed the small hotel room they’d been staying in. Phil held his breath, noting that Clint was doing the same. The footsteps passed them and moved towards the bathroom.

“I didn’t mean lead them to us.”

“How was I supposed to know it was a massive crime syndicate with delusions of grandeur?”

“I hate you.”

The footsteps came back and stopped outside the closet door. Phil silently grabbed the dirty bathrobe left in the closet by the previous tenants. Clint’s grip on his knife tightened incrementally. The closet door creaked open, and he threw the filthy cloth into the face of whoever was opening the door. Clint barrelled out, knocking the man over and making it a close quarters fight. Phil swung his gun up - four more, still gaping in surprise. He shot the first one in the chest, and the second in the knee, pleased when the second man dropped his weapon on his way to the floor. Then he moved, heading around the room to duck behind the old dresser. They’d pulled it away from the wall for this reason. The sound of gunshots and splintering wood made Phil wince, but also guaranteed that he’d distracted them from Hawkeye for the moment.

Hawkeye, who had long since dispatched the first man and pulled a gun of his own. Clint may prefer archery, but he could use a gun when they needed to make sure nothing they did could be traced back to them. The gunshots stopped, and Phil banged his head against the dresser once. “I could be in Portland,” he said, “eating the best burger you would ever taste and looking forward to a long night of cuddles and romantic comedy.”

“You’re welcome,” Clint said.

“How far behind are the rest?”

“Five minutes, tops.”

Phil rose from his spot and fumbled his comm unit out of his pocket, tucking it into his ear. “Widow, check in. Hawkeye is an idiot.”

“What else is new?”

“We’ve got to fly the coop,” Clint said, comm unit back in his ear. “Our small arms dealers are a bit bigger than we expected.”

“It’s never anything small with you,” Natasha grumbled. “Meet at rendezvous G, I’m near there.”

“Got it,” Phil said, preventing Clint from replying. “We’ll keep you posted.”

He moved to the window, yanking it open as Clint grabbed their go bags. Climbing onto the sill, Phil easily made the jump to the roof of the next building. Clint tossed him the go bags, then followed. The roof access wasn’t locked, and they made their way down the interior of the building. This staircase had one prime advantage over the one in their hotel - it had no windows. They each took up a position next to the door at the bottom of the stairwell. Phil held up three fingers. Two. One. He threw the door open, ducking in case someone’s fist was waiting. No one was there.

“Maybe we got lucky,” Clint said, and immediately winced. Phil groaned.

“Nice one, Hawkeye,” Widow said over the comms before falling silent again.

Phil and Clint slipped out into the alley and made their way towards the busy street nearby. Clint’s hand wrapped tightly around Phil’s elbow. “Straight over,” he said. Sure enough, Phil spotted movement in the alley directly across from theirs. He almost missed the sound of movement behind them. He whirled, reaching over to catch a wrist just over Hawkeye’s shoulder. The tobacco-breathed man sneered at them, and Clint ducked out of the way as Phil drew a knife of his own. Diving straight into the fight, Phil didn’t stop moving as he attempted to disarm their assailant. He heard Clint shoot behind him, and the resulting chaos on the main street. He stepped backward, out of the way of the man’s knife - and straight into a pothole.

“Fuck!” he yelled, even as his enemy went down at the sound of a gunshot. Clint rushed over and dragged Phil to his feet. Warily, Phil tested his foot. It hurt, but he could still walk on it.

“We need to move,” Clint said, and pulled Phil into the busy foot traffic of Italy. They made their way through the crowd, walking casually, as though they belonged. Heading south, they soon had to leave the cover of the crowd behind to make their way towards the rendezvous. “Two minutes barring issues,” Clint muttered into the comms.

“Got it,” Natasha replied. “And stop that.”

“Yeah, that would be a good plan,” Clint said. He and Phil stood in an alley just across a large plaza from the rendezvous. A large, busy plaza. A large, normally empty plaza full of people with guns. “There’s gotta be a sniper.”

“You go high, I’ll go low,” Phil said. He gave Clint ten minutes to make it up the building and locate a sniper, slipping a silencer onto his gun. They were too close to cover the sound of the shot, but it might throw the sound enough to make his location harder to identify. He leaned on his uninjured foot to hold himself steady and took aim.

“In position,” Clint said breathlessly.

“I’m almost there,” Natasha said.

“On a count of five.” Four, three, two, one. Phil shot someone near his spot as a man across the courtyard went down with a bullet in his brain. Chaos broke out immediately, and Phil kept firing, picking off those trying to move towards his corner to take him out. Clint was picking them off from above, and judging by the number falling, Phil guessed Natasha arrived as well. The thing about open plazas was that whoever had the high ground controlled the fight.

“Hawkeye, got a couple climbers,” Natasha said.

“I see ‘em.”

Phil stopped to reload his clip and one of the men managed to make it to his corner. This particular goon had some actual martial arts training. Phil’s injured leg shook as he ducked and turned under blows. His opponent swept at his feet, trying to knock him over, and Phil heard something in his ankle crack as his vision went gray. A moment later, and Natasha was standing where the enemy was a moment ago, slipping under his shoulder and dragging him away as Clint let them know he’d follow. 

“The cellist is going to panic,” Phil grumbled once he’d gotten his breath back.

“Bet he’ll nurse you back to health.”

“Keep in mind that I write your year-end review, Hawkeye,” Phil snapped. Tony was going to freak when Phil came home late, in a cast. If he was lucky - they hadn’t finished the mission objective yet. “And that my cellist can make your life hell.”

Natasha snorted.

“I bet he was going to go all out today, flowers, chocolate, the whole shebang,” Phil whined. “And instead I’m getting shot at in a back alley in Italy. We didn’t even get any of the good food before this nonsense.”

“Look at it this way,” Natasha said, “now you have a really good excuse to demand cuddles when we get back.”

“I don’t need one,” Phil snapped. “Hawkeye, how are we looking?”

“Almost lost them,” Clint replied. “Hook a right.”

Natasha spun, keeping Phil on his feet as they darted into another alley, this one complete with stray cat and garbage bin.

“If you don’t stop jinxing us, I will ensure your death is slow and painful,” Natasha said, and they kept running.

Phil really just wanted to go home.


	2. Je compte les heures (I count the hours)

**February 21, 2007**

Tony eyed his watch impatiently. The plane had touched down two minutes and forty-three seconds ago, and logically he knew Happy and Phil would take at least another half hour, but he wanted to see Phil _now_. He didn’t want to cause a scene, or he’d be on the damn tarmac. 

Sighing, Tony leaned back against the sleek leather seat of the car. He felt his shoulders sink into the luxurious fabric and sighed again. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Where are they now?”

There was a pause filled with Jarvis asked for patience. “Waiting for Agent Coulson’s luggage, sir.”

“Still?”

“It has not yet been ten minutes since the flight landed, sir.”

“It feels like it’s been hours.”

“Indeed,” Jarvis grumbled. 

Tony leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. He eyed his watch again. It took an eternity for the second hand to tick over. “Are we sure there isn’t some kind of slow motion machine in use?” Tony asked.

“Quite sure, sir, as the progression of time matches all of my server locations.”

“Even the one under Dubai?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony pouted, crossing his arms. “This is taking forever. How does Happy handle spending so much time waiting around for me?”

“I believe he has a Rubik's cube in the glove box, along with a book of Sudoku puzzles.”

“Boring.”

“They keep Happy happy well enough.”

Tony snickered, distracted for a moment. “Oh, so you’ve escalated to puns now?”

“I haven’t an inkling of your meaning, sir,” Jarvis replied.

“Where are they now?” Tony asked. It had been eleven minutes and thirty-seven seconds since the plane touched down.

“Just retrieving Agent Coulson’s luggage, sir.”

“So they’re almost here!”

“Sir, if you ever go on a road trip, please do forget to bring me along.”

Tony stuck his nose in the air. “I will have you know I am an absolute delight on road trips. My parents only left me behind at gas stations four times.”

There was a long pause as Tony registered what he’d said, and winced. “...Best not inform Agent Coulson of those times, sir. He may begin looking into resurrection rituals for the sake of enacting his own vengeance on your behalf.”

“Agreed. Let’s never mention it to him, ever. Where is he now?”

“It is a very large airport, sir.”

“Phil isn’t exactly slow,” Tony whined, but subsided. He threw himself dramatically across the back seats. “I’m wasting away!”

“Your poor nerves,” Jarvis said, dry as a desert.

If only Tony could pinpoint where Phil was at any given… “Jarvis, make a note, subdermal trackers.”

“Noted, and discarded.”

“Hey!”

“May I remind you of the last four times you suggested such a solution to Agent Coulson.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony looked at his watch, again. A whole three minutes had passed since he last checked it. “How do people do this?” he wondered aloud.

“Do what, sir?”

“Wait for things for more than three minutes.”

“With practice and ingenuity, I’m sure.”

“Sassy, sassy.” Tony stretched, hands and toes colliding with the closed doors on either end of the car. He stared up at the gray fabric over his head. “Remind me never to wait in any sort of… line. Ugh, the word gives me hives.”

“I will prepare appropriate compensation for anyone who happens to be in the same line, sir. May I direct your attention to the rear window?”

Tony sat up, delighted to watch the trunk pop open. He bounced in his seat. Phil was so close he could practically hear him saying hello already. Only Pepper and Phil’s dire threats should he reveal himself and cause a scene kept him from jumping out of the car. Tony scooched to the middle of the car so he wouldn’t be in the way and was in a more opportune position to hold Phil’s hand on the drive home.

“ -can still open doors myself, Happy,” Phil grumbled.

Tony turned towards the opening door with delight and froze. He felt his eyes go wide, and he failed to react for a long moment as Phil slid into the car, Happy handing him a set of crutches to lay by their feet for the ride. The door slamming shut snapped him out of it. He hurled himself at Phil, careful not to jostle the foot in a cast. “What happened? Are you okay? Of course not, you’ve got crutches, and a cast, a big one - are you okay? What’s the verdict? You promised to be careful!” Tony wrapped his arms around Phil’s middle and looked up. Just as Phil looked down and Happy threw the car into reverse.

Their lips mashed together, and it was a bit awkward for a second, but then Tony just melted and lost his breath. Phil pulled back, and Tony blinked at him. “Good to see you too,” Phil said, and pressed a light kiss to his forehead.

“Yeah… Wait. What happened?”

“I’m _fine_ , Tony. Benched for a bit, but the doctor says to expect full recovery.”

“But what happened? It’s Clint’s fault, isn’t it -”

“Tony. Calm down. I’m perfectly fine. _And_ I get time off.”

Tony pouted. “Time off with a broken limb.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “I brought you a present,” he said.

Tony perked up. “A present?”

“A really big teddy bear. He’s injured, though, so he’ll need a lot of cuddles and kisses to feel better…”

Tony scowled. “I’d prefer a big _uninjured_ teddy bear in the future,” he grumbled.

“Noted,” Phil said, smiling. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Phil.”

* * *

“...And of course, Clint just kept right on tempting the fates. Natasha wasn’t pleased.”

“Good. Me neither.”

“And also I kicked a guy really hard in the face.”

Tony stared at Phil as they pulled into the garage. “Is that how you broke your foot? _Seriously_?”

“Well, it was already in pretty bad shape before then, but yeah, that’s what finally broke the ankle. And from that point forward it was just chaos.” Phil scowled. “I didn’t even get to eat any of the good food while I was there, which is a crying shame.”

“There?”

“Italy,” Phil groused.

Tony grinned. “I’ve got you covered. You just shower and relax. I’ll make dinner.”

Phil blinked at him. “You can cook?” he asked innocently.

Tony put his nose in the air. “I’m not completely useless,” he replied, faking affront.

“I know,” Phil said, entirely serious. The car slid to a stop. Tony was quick to hop out and race around to Phil’s side. Happy went straight for the bags, rolling his eyes as Tony hovered around Phil as the agent carefully climbed out of the car and situated his crutches. “Tony, relax,” Phil said. “It’s not the first time I’ve had crutches, and it’s likely not the last.”

“Sorry,” Tony mumbled.

“It’s fine, Tony. Race you to the elevator.” Phil took off at once, barely hampered by his foot as he sped along on his crutches. 

“Hey, that’s cheating!” 

“All’s fair in love and war,” Phil responded. Tony quickly caught up, but didn’t outpace Phil by much. He kept anxiously looking over his shoulder like he thought Phil was about to fall over on the cement or something. As a result, Tony only barely beat Phil to the elevator. Phil smiled at Tony, pleased to see the genius relaxing a bit as his subconscious started to register that yes, Phil was home, and he was okay.

“I believe I was promised a shower,” Phil said. The thought of hot water on his aching muscles sounded heavenly. 

“Yep! Hot shower and good Italian coming right up,” Tony said. “Do you need to wrap that?” He gestured at the cast.

“No - I have a specialty cover for it. SHIELD deals with a lot of injured agents,” Phil said. “I’ll head up when I’m finished.”

Tony nodded. “Sounds good.”

The elevator stopped and they both clambered out. Phil headed down the hallway towards his usual guest room and shower while Tony turned the other direction, towards the kitchen. Reaching the room, Phil sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh. Happy would be up with his luggage soon. “Jarvis?”

“Yes, Agent Coulson?”

“Is Tony actually cooking?” Tony had offered before, but generally ended up ordering out or taking Phil out instead.

“He is, Agent Coulson.”

Phil beamed. He could not _wait_ to see what Tony made. This was an enormous show of trust, from Tony. He wasn’t sure exactly what about cooking for Phil made Tony so nervous, but he was willing to bet it was Stone’s fault, and it was nice to see Tony doing better and better every time he was home.

Happy tapped lightly on Phil’s door frame and dragged in his suitcase. “Delivery,” he said.

“Thank you, Happy.”

“Of course. Anything else I can do for you before I head out?”

“No, I don’t think so. Tony give you the night off?”

“Pepper did.”

“That woman is going to take over the world someday.”

“She hasn’t already?” Happy asked as he headed out the door.

Phil laughed and got to work getting ready to shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Hawkwind, as usual! She's the best! :) And many thanks to all of you for your amazing reviews and comments! I didn't have time to respond to all of them, but they're what really keeps me writing!
> 
> ~Era

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to Through Death We Won't Part! Many thanks to Hawkwind1980 - as usual, her help is the only reason I finally got this published. 
> 
> The song for the chapter titles of this fic is [Jet Lag ft. Marie-Mai](https://youtu.be/HxtfFoFwrmA). Enjoy!
> 
> ~Era


End file.
